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Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Snips and snails and puppy dog tails

He came out of me with a birthmark, circular, maybe a quarter-inch across. It's on his inner thigh so high up that you can't see it unless you remove his diaper. I held him for a few moments after he was born and then he went to the other side of the room to be weighed and Apgar scored and then while I was stitched and cleaned up and

[I have to interrupt this story to tell you: the doctor who delivered the baby - he wore a clear visor in front of his face and its brand name was emblazoned across the top. Do you know how amusing it is, midst pushing a baby out of your nethers, to see from in between your thighs the phrase SPLASH GUARD across your doctor's eyebrows? I don't remember that accessory in use at my other two births. Maybe amusing isn't exactly the word. Disconcerting? Somewhere between the two.]

the nurse said, "Did you see he has a birthmark? My daughter has one there." I hadn't seen it yet, and by then he was measured and tested and back in my arms, so I started inspecting him. The nurse continued, "I always tell her, 'I'm going to ask your boyfriends, 'have you seen her birthmark?' and the day any of them answers 'yes,' they're dead.'"

SPLASH GUARD was still stitching me and another nurse was massaging my midsection and I was happily counting toes and rubbing cheeks and pondering pigmentation so I only absentmindedly continued the conversation: "How old is your daughter?" And the nurse responded. "22!" I smiled and said half out loud, "I don't know how much longer you'll be able to say that." She answered immediately, "Please. As long as I'm paying tuition, I can say that!"

My son wasn't yet two minutes old and yet I was pondering him at age 22. Would there be somebody in love with the mark in his thigh? Would he be finishing college? Embarking on his adulthood?

He's hairy, not in the way of dark, disguising hair but covered in fine, white down, found more easily by touch than by sight. He's thick of sideburns with these hairs, as were his sisters, and I know soon they'll rub away like peach fuzz, but then, on this face, one day they'll grow back. There will be sideburns. Maybe a beard. A little goatee?

He's five days old but he might, I mean one day, he might sport a goatee and have taken a lover.

I've daydreamed the life of girls for so long. With this boy I'm learning a foreign language. It's intriguing and mysterious and I don't know how to conjugate yet. I can dream of him though I can't yet articulate. He's a new landscape that changes the my usual ways of exploring.

I started this post eight hours ago. Two-handed free time is in short supply right now, though please understand that I'm not at all complaining. To the so wonderful many of you who left such kind comments, I just don't know if I'll manage to respond in a timely manner but thank you. You're a delight and a heartwarmer and the best cheering squad a girl could have.

3 comments:

Let me be one of the first to help you along with learning this "foreign language." Boys don't "take a lover." Maybe "get some play" or "score," but definitely not "take a lover." Not as poetic, I know, but then how many boys are when it comes down to it?